Accusation OneFreemasonry is Opposed to Christianity

Who Brings the Charges?

The accusation that Freemasonry is not only anti-religion but specifically opposed to the Christian religion has come from a number of different Christian denominations but in the main there are two particular Christian groups that keep the anti-Freemasonic pot boiling. These are the Roman Catholic Church and branches of evangelical Protestant Christians denominations (especially in the United States of America.)

Roman Catholic Attacks

The most vicious public attack made against Freemasonry by the Roman Catholic Church came in the form of an Encyclical, published by Pope Leo VIII on April 20th 1884. This extensive document, entitled 'Humanum Genus' accused Freemasonry of just about every sort of heresy imaginable. In particular it attacked what the Pope referred to as 'public sovereignty', explained as the belief that human beings should bend to no authority but their own. The document also went to great pains to condem what Pope Leo clearly saw as the Masonic belief that Church and State should exist as totally separate entities. Freemasonic membership by any Roman Catholic had been specifically forbidden ever since 1738, when Pope Clement XII had first commented on Freemasonry. This is what Clement had to say about Freemasonry, even at this very early date:"......But it is in the nature of crime to betray itself and to show itself by its attendant clamor. Thus these aforesaid Societies or Conventicles have caused in the minds of the faithful the greatest suspicion, and all prudent and upright men have passed the same judgment on them as being depraved and perverted. For if they were not doing evil they would not have so great a hatred of the light."

A Deeper Suspicion

The Catholic Church definitely believed that modern Freemasonry was an offshoot of a medieval institution known as the Knights Templar. The Templars were originally a Catholic order of fighting monks, formed to fight against Islam in the Near East. From their origins in the early 12th century they grew to become one of the most powerful institutions the world had ever known. The Templars were not simply monks; they were bankers, shippers, tax collectors, farmers, industrialists and political powerbrokers. In 1307 they were attacked by the French King Philip II, aided by his 'tame' pope, Clement V, and were accused of every form of evil imaginable. The Templars were disbanded and many of their leaders were executed. Perhaps the Catholic Church felt a twinge of guilt for the way it had treated one of its own institutions but whether this was the case or not, there is absolutely no doubt that successive popes believed that the Knights Templar had survived in the form of Freemasonry and that Freemasonry was hellbent on destroying the same Christian doctrine that had conspired to eradicate the Knights Templar. A virtual paranoia developed, which found its most tangible form with an Italian Masonic-like organisation known as the 'Carbonari'. Some time between 1820 and 1846 the leaders of the Italian Carbonari supposedly released a document known as 'Alta Vendita'. This was the most inflammatory quasi-Masonic documents ever to see the light of day because it specifically stated that the intention of the Carbonari was to infiltrate the Roman Catholic Church using its own Carbonari members and then destroy it from the inside out. The Carbonari may have had little or nothing to do with genuine Freemasonry but it was close enough as far as the Church was concerned. Catholic hatred for Freemasonry became even more intense and in successive decades Freemasonry was condemned by one pope after another. This is a state of affairs that has lasted until the present day - despite the fact (or maybe partly because of the fact) that a number of scandals surrounding the Catholic Church have centred upon supposed Masonic Lodges that exist 'within' the Vatican itself.